Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Harmonic Lightwaves (HLIT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillyG who wrote (3339)	3/14/2000 3:06:00 PM
From: J Fieb	Respond to of 4134

Nortel has been an optics vacuum cleaner this past year and they got another.... Nortel buys Xros to get new switch By Bloomberg News March 14, 2000, 8:40 a.m. PT BRAMPTON, Ontario--Nortel Networks, North America's No. 2 phone-equipment maker, agreed to buy Xros for $3.25 billion in stock, the latest in a flurry of acquisitions to gain fiber-optic technology. Xros, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is developing a switch that redirects beams of light from one piece of glass fiber to another using tiny mirrors. Nortel expects to begin selling the device next year, after completing the Xros purchase in the second quarter. Nortel is using its shares, which have quadrupled in the past 12 months, to snap up start-ups to gain products for optical networks and strengthen its hold as the biggest seller of fiber-optic equipment. Xros gives Nortel a device to compete with Lucent Technologies, which has developed a similar product. "Nortel is being very aggressive in optical with acquisitions," said Warburg Dillon Read analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos, who rates Nortel stock a "buy." "Xros fills a hole in a major product area that really hasn't emerged yet." in December agreed to buy Qtera, another start-up with no sales, for $3.25 billion in stock. It completed the purchase in January. Nortel bought Cambrian Systems for $300 million in December 1998. New breed Xros, founded in 1996, has 90 employees. Its product, the X-1000, is one example of a new breed of switch designed to improve the performance of fiber-optic networks by redirecting beams of light that carry data, voice and video traffic. Switches today have to convert the light into electronic signals first, a slower and more expensive process. Lucent introduced its competing product, the LambdaRouter, in November. Agilent Technologies, a spin off from Hewlett- Packard, unveiled its version of an optical switch last week. Cisco Systems, the No. 1 maker of Internet equipment, has spent $9.8 billion to break into the market for optical-networking gear. Nortel said it plans to combine the X-1000 with Qtera products that carry information on fiber networks for 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles). The purchase will cut earnings per share slightly before acquisition costs this year, and boost profit in 2001. Copyright 2000, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved. Get the Story in "Big Picture"